Page 3 of The Neverfear

‘I’ll tell Nighthand. He’s the bravest man I ever met, an’ I don’ necessarily mean tha’ as a compliment.’

‘I heard Nighthand’s dead.’ Pavel ran his tongue over his pencil-thin moustache. ‘He’s not been seen in the bars and taverns for more’n a year.’

‘Course he’s not dead, man! D’ye never listen to the ratatoskas? Nor the mermaids? They’re not singin’ their songs for fun – it’s news. He’s no’ the drunken smuggler yer knew. He helped trace the new Immortal bairn. He’s an ally o’ the sphinxes.’

‘Where is he then?’

‘He’s got some palace off the coast o’ Lithia with a lass he has the love-aches for. They say she’s got the learnin’ of a dozen women: always bein’ hounded by the Senate for advice. They’ll know what to do, and who to tell.’

‘But, Captain, the risk—’

‘Pavel!’

‘Sir?’

‘Shut yer mouth. If we go fast we’ll ge’ there in time for their feast. Send Rixo to me.’ And Vigo Nex turned and roared to his crew: ‘Set course for the Palace of Glimt!’

The Palace Of Glimt

The Palace of Glimt had more than sixty rooms, and all of them were worth seeing. It had, long ago, been built as a pleasure palace for princes, but now it was full of greater marvels. There was the Great Hall with its jewelled floor, bedrooms with four-posters and the music room with its ebony piano – and every single room in the palace was occupied by creatures. There were sucking-fish in the marble baths and hercinia birds nesting on the billiard table. The injured and endangered, the old and broken, the young and abandoned all came to the palace to seek refuge.

If Christopher stood on the palace steps at sunrise, he could hear the cacophony of waking things – the whinny of the longma with the uneven wings, the baby roc chirping in the ballroom, the tortoise-shelled terasque clattering hungrily down the hallways lit by chandeliers.

The palace was the property of Fidens Nighthand, Berserker. He had inherited the whole islet, its greenhouses and small forest and orchard, and with Irian Guinne he had transformed it into a haven of safety and of learning. For it was not just a refuge; it was a place through which news and scholarship travelled. The library of Glimt was stocked with ancient texts, and men and women came to visit from afar.

‘But they don’t come for the books,’ said Nighthand. ‘They come for Irian.’

That was true, Christopher knew. The reputation of Irian Guinne, the scholar with nereid blood, had spread far in the past year. She welcomed all who came: members of the Flying Senate, powerful diplomats and careful-faced politicians and, once, a man who Nighthand claimed was a sorcerer. ‘We must share the old knowledge,’ she would say. ‘It will be needed. One day the Immortal child will be old enough to tell us some of what he knows. Our task is to make ready.’

Every morning Christopher and Anya had lessons in the library from Irian and from Gallia, the old gagana bird. They learned the history of the Archipelago, the mathematics of the stars, the science of the waters. Gallia insisted that they memorise the legal systems for each of the thirty-four islands, reciting: ‘Freondell: mostly lawless, pirates common, stay away.’ Each afternoon they worked in the palace and grounds. They dressed wounds, fed, watered, mucked out, bathed, consoled, restrained and coaxed the creatures. It was sweaty, often dangerous work, and Christopher had never loved anything so much in his life.

Irian worked alongside them. It was difficult to trouble or flummox her. When, for instance, a bonnacon had arrived on the island the week before, it was Irian who herded him into the orchard. He was the size of a bull, with horns that curled in towards his sad face.

‘Christopher, come here, you must see him! Add him to your Bestiary. Their horns turn inwards, and so they’ve developed a fantastic self-defence mechanism; it’s all excrement-based. A fart can knock an adult unconscious for an hour; its diarrhoea can burn the skin off your bones.’

The bonnacon crouched under the shade of a pear tree and farted. The stench was staggering. Christopher gagged. Nighthand took a deep breath in, like a flatulence connoisseur.

‘Formidable,’ said Irian, her hand over her nose and mouth. ‘We could call him Cacafuego.’

There was a crash. Nighthand had fainted.

In these last weeks, though, Christopher had seen Irian more and more often down at the edge of the island where the garden met the sea, speaking with a herd of nereids. When she returned, her face would be creased with unease.

‘What is it?’ he had asked.

But she had smiled at him, and shaken her head. ‘Just news.’

Back in his bedroom, Christopher swiftly washed and dressed in clothes that did not smell of the miracle of birth, which was, he reflected, more odorous than most people admitted.

He opened his bedroom door and yelped. ‘By the Immortal! Could you not do that?’

The young chimaera was in the corridor, with all three of its heads – goat, lion and snake – attempting to peer through his keyhole.

‘We were looking for you,’ said the goat.

‘You’re not supposed to be inside,’ said Christopher.

‘We want,’ said the lion, ‘to play ball.’